Praying for the Holy Spirit

Monthly Archives: December 2016

A favorite book of all of post world war II Popes right up to Benedict and Francis has been Romano Guardini’s “The End of the Modern World” written by Guardini during the second world war but first published in America in 1956. In that prophetic work Guardini goes through the list of theories concerning the modern world, as it was exemplified in the mass slaughters of the 20th century. Those slaughters were caused by the modern heresies of capitalism, communism, fascism and Islamism but Guardini argues that we cannot understand those slaughters or the modern condition with all the old theories….History is not some gradual decline from a golden age like the philosophies of India and of the ancient world contended. History is also not the narrative favored by modern liberals of gradual progress and emancipation rooted in science and technology. History is not cyclic and it is not merely a “nightmare from which I am trying to awake” as Stephen Daedelus exclaimed in James Joyce’s Ulysses. All these common understandings of where the world is going are incorrect according to Guardini. Instead the modern world we find ourselves in is in utter discontinuity with anything experienced by human beings in the past. We are as a species embarked on something completely new and there are as of yet no categories that can capture the great rupture that began in the 20th century.

Even the traditional Christian view of history will need deepening (not revision or “updating”). The Christian view of history involves a pivot point that occurred 2000 years ago in Palestine with the birth of Christ and then the scandal of the Cross and then a long period of expectant hope, based on the resurrection and the looking forward to the final revelation. While these dogmatic truths remain true in our current situation, most nominal Christian no longer believe these truths. Instead they have bought into one of the 20th century heresies. Yet it is these and other dogmatic truths of the Catholic church that will give us the categories to understand what is occurring to human beings in the modern era.

We live now, according to Guardini, in the era of the mass man; a frightening creature who knows more and more about less and less and into whose hands are concentrated enormous powers. Science has delivered Nature into the hands of the anonymous mass man-an utter mediocrity who because of the heresies he is taught in schools and via media is capable of the greatest crimes—all the while believing that he is serving “progress” or “emancipation” of some kind. A single individual infected with heresy who acts from the mass can press the button on a nuclear device or release into the air a pathogen that will annihilate hundreds of millions of people. Science and ‘democracy” and capitalism has delivered into the hands of the imbecilic mass man these and other awesome powers.

Needless to say the anonymous mass crushes true individuality and excellence which can only come about when the individual is oriented to God and Church. But Guardini does not merely catalogue the horrors of the mass man. Instead he asks what should the church do given this is what we have to work with? It as if the Church now has to develop a ministry or theology for working with autistic savants only because modern education is designed to create mere mediocrities who can nevertheless crunch numbers competently in a huge corporate or government bureaucracy. The imbecilic mass man has immense technical skills but no wisdom. Each individual is therefore a truncated individual with hypertrophied tech skills and absolutely no spiritual awareness. Or better his spiritual awareness is driven only by one of the modern heresies that accommodate the mass man: Islamism, democracy, capitalism, progressivism, liberalism or communism etc…

What happens to the church is such as mass society? True doctrine and true belief begins to disappear. The church will need to respond to the rapid decline of true belief: “The rapid advance of a non- Christian ethos will be crucial for the Christian sensibility. As unbelievers deny revelation more decisively–as they put their denial into more frequent practice it will become more evident what it really means to be Christian…”

“Christianity will once again need to prove itself deliberately as a faith which is not self-evident; it will be forced to distinguish itself more sharply from a dominantly non-Christian ethos. At that juncture the theological significance of dogma will begin a fresh advance…I emphasize its absoluteness, its unconditional demands and affirmations. Dogma in its very nature surmounts the march of time because it is rooted in eternity….In this manner the Faith will maintain itself against animosity and danger.”

In order to withstand the onslaught of dehumanizing heresies thrown at the church from all sides the thing that will save the church is its reliance and its adherence to the ancient and ex cathedra defined dogmas. In addition, since human beings cannot live long without these life affirming dogmas the culture of the unbeliever will begin to die out. He with then flail about looking for anything but those dogmas to generate meaning and culture.

“At the same time the unbeliever will emerge from the fogs of secularism. He will eventually cease to reap benefits from the values and forces developed by the very revelation he denies. He will have to lean to exist honestly without Christ and without the God revealed through him. He will have to learn to experience what this honesty means…The last decades (meaning the world wars) have suggested what life without Christ really is. The last decades are only the beginning…”

The modern man is really a child who nonetheless has access to nuclear weapons. So how does the church deal with this situation. The church needs to be there to offer to mass man the old dogmas thus giving him an alternative to the heresies which will only lead to mass slaughters again.

Guardini claims that aside from the horrors of mass man the phenomena of mass man points to the need for a new theology and a new ‘personalism’ that can lead mass man away from the lure of the heresies. The new person has to be born out of the mass man. Indeed mass man makes possible the birth of the new person: “The new “Person” is destined to stand forth with a spiritual resoluteness never demanded of man before. Strangely the very mass which carries the dangers of totalitarianism also offer the fullest range of spiritual maturity to the new human person. Such a challenge demands an inner freedom and strength of character which we can scarcely conceive. Nothing else however can withstand the powers of anonymity which grow more immense day by day.”

This Christmas, after further outrages and attacks on Christians this past week in Europe, representatives of Islam, the “religion of peace” have officially called for attacks on Christian churches throughout the world while Christians are attending Christmas services. Let us pray that their efforts at mass murder will fail. Little has changed however across the last thousand years among the believers in the religion of peace. A thousand years ago Islamic fanatics were calling on other Islamic fanatics to do the same things to Christians as they are doing to Christians in the modern world: mass attacks, beheadings, forced conversions, mass executions, etc etc…Islamic armies were then and now implementing the same bloodthirsty attacks on Christians and fulminating against all things Christian. But I guess for leftist politicians 1000 years of such atrocities is not yet enough evidence to draw any significant conclusions concerning the nature of Christianity’s self-proclaimed foe.

1009: Muslims destroy Christian holy sites in the holy land including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

1012: Muslim forces capture Cordova and order that half the population be executed.

1015: Arab Muslim forces conquer Sardinia.

1016: Muslims consolidate rule in the Holy Land outlawing Christians and Jews but The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is partially destroyed by earthquakes.

1095: At the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II calls for a holy war to wrest control of Jerusalem from Muslims, which launches the First Crusade (1096)

For a CHILD IS BORN to us, and a son is given to us, and the government is upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, God the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace. His empire shall be multiplied, and there shall be no end of peace: he shall sit upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom; to establish it and strengthen it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and for ever: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.

For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting. For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. He that believeth in him is not judged. But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. For every one that doth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light, that his works may not be reproved.

I’m going to confession today. Are You? I shall be at Mass in the morning – happy, grateful and somewhat sleep-deprived with a grandchild or two… but, it is Christmas after all!

I pray that YOU welcome The Light of redemption for mankind… the Prince of Peace. The Christ-child. Born in Bethlehem to die on The Cross – all to propitiate for the sin of You and me. Believe it. Then rejoice at His birth! … “and where sin abounded, grace did more abound.” I do believe. I’m going to make a scramble for that GRACE. Won’t you? May we meet at the manger, kneeling and giving Him laud – The Christ, The King, the baby Jesus. Merry Christmas dear reader!

Ambassador to Russia murdered in public in Turkey. The murderer shouted allahu akbar, “our god is greatest” and then shot him nine times in the back. May God rest the soul of the Honourable Ambassador Andrey Karlov and judge to Hell, the 22 year old off-duty police officer and mohammedan terrorist who was shot moments later.In Switzerland, a mohammedan shot up and killed people at a mohammedan worship centre. He no doubt shouted “our god is greatest.”In Berlin, 12 dead and 40 injured at a Christmas market the next location of slaughter by a “lorry,” according to the BBC, but a “lorry” driven by a mahomedan from Pakistan along side the dead body of a poor Polish man murdered for it, no doubt shouting “our god is greatest.” God rest the souls of the victims and damn the mohammedan to Hell.Bergoglio demands more of these monsters in our nation states, These whose “god” is the devil. Does he feel any guilt over yesterday?There is a solution to this but we must have the stomach for it.The example is a little piece of America on the east side of Cuba. Large enough for tens of thousands and a complete clean-up of those in our lands who sympathise with these irreformable barbarians. Merkel, Cameron, Obama, Hollande, Bergoglio, Trudeau. They did this.

Frankie The Hippie Pope said some things last fall that were reported thusly:

Pope Francis has urged Europeans to take in more refugees, asserting that the best way to combat terrorism is by warmly welcoming migrants and helping them integrate into the “European context.”

This coming from a South American Marxist who despises the entire European paradigm… the rich history and it’s whole aura and essence. It’s entire meaning for the world, especially in a Christian context. (see my post of Aug 18th – “NotmyPope trending in Europe”)

After what happened today In Berlin AT A CHRISTMAS FAIR!!! Mr. or Ms. Western Liberal, I invite you to take a guess as to who might have been there milling around sampling the sausage, beer, candies and treats… CHRISTIANS!!!! Who were the targets of this infamy? Christians. European Christians. My People. Yes, MY people! I am outraged. This pope is an enemy to my patrimony.

I call for a just war. We have been attacked time and time again. Innocent European Christians. To you liberal westerners I say; take your “We are The World” mentality from the eighties and stuff it… and I tell you this Muslim terrorist; if you pull your shit anywhere near me or mine – go ahead and yell “Allahu Akbar”… I will send you to hell and manfully dispatched you shall be – I assure you… and I’ll sit down to a Steak Piaziolla right afterwards. This I pledge, with all of my European Catholic heart.

Peter Seewald is a German journalist who has interviewed Pope Benedict several times and published these interviews in the past. The current book contains transcripts of interviews conducted shortly before, but mostly after the Pope’s resignation. So the questions were all designed to have the Pope emeritus look back on his life and his service to the church and thus we get Benedict’s reflective perspective on many things from Vatican II to the “Gay Lobby” scandal in the Vatican. The things he most regrets are his lifting of the excommunication on Bishop Williamson of SPXX due to the claims that the Bishop was a holocaust denier; his inability to handle the narrative the press was constructing after Vatican II and the priest sex abuse scandal that began under Pope John Paul’s reign but lingered into Pope Benedict’s reign as well. His, regrets, however, do not in any way dominate his reflections.

I always thought–and these interviews confirm for me, that the thing that most characterized Pope Benedict’s service to the church was his constant insistence that the revelation of Christ was that the GODHEAD or the deity or God was the WORD or the logos, and thus that the inner nature of Christ and Christianity was essentially reason/rationality-not just love. That was the message of Benedict’s 2006 Regensburg address which touched off fanatical muslim riots all over the world –namely that Christianity was not like other religions; that it was not a religion at all since it was so wedded to reason at its foundation…

Benedict’s parents were devout Bavarian Catholics. His father passionately opposed Hitler and subscribed to a paper/journal that was Catholic and anti-Hitler so these sentiments were passed onto to his son. His two sons went into the priesthood with the future Pope doing his dissertation on Augustine-not Aquinas. He rose rapidly through the clerical ranks becoming Bishop of Munich near his hometown in Bavaria while his theological works were attracting attention far and wide. When Vatican II arrived the future Pope became an advisor to some of the most “liberal” Bishops attending but neither he nor they thought of themselves or the council as “progressive”, “liberal” or “innovative”. They saw themselves as re-expressing traditional positions of the Church. For example the council fathers recommended an expansion, not the elimination of Latin in the church and in the liturgy. He blames the subsequent disastrous effects of Vatican II on “progressives” outside the church who controlled media interpretations of what the council documents were otherwise saying.

“The bishops wanted to renew the faith, to deepen it. However, other forces were working with increasing strength, particularly journalists, who interpreted many things in a completely new way. Eventually people asked, yes, if the bishops are able to change everything, why can’t we all do that? The liturgy began to crumble and slip into personal preferences. Since 1965 I have felt it to be a mission to make clear what we genuinely wanted and what we did not want.” (p. 141)

but for Benedict, Vatican II was not disastrous, it was a world historical landmark for the church and the world. Its effects were not only disastrous. In the theological realm they were fruitful and revelatory. Reading these interviews, one gets the sense that Benedict’s first vocation was as a thinker and a theologian. Like every great philosopher he loved to take long walks especially walks alone. From his perspective the landmark’s in his life were not career markers like when he became Bishop, then Prefect, then John Paul’s right hand man and then Pope. No his landmarks, were his intellectual breakthroughs. The things that gave him strength despite his many and serious health issues and the crushing responsibilities of his offices was his theological work. that was how he prayed.

His explanation and description of his abdication was succinct and convincing: he was not laying down the cross associated with the papacy just the work. He could not perform the functions of a Pope given his brain hemorrhage and other very serious health issues.

Remarkably, people see this intellectual Pope as a traditionalist who opposed all things progressive and modern. While it is certainly true that he opposed all versions of the modernist heresy he did not oppose modernity per se. In these interviews he talks about the good things modernity has brought humanity including science, wealth for many, better health, global communications etc but especially the philosophical and theological insights. Like any reasonable person he wants to accept and use these good things for the betterment of humanity while opposing the well-known bad things modernity brings in its wake. its up to us to own the theological insights into the original Christian revelation that modernity gives us but no-one has yet been able to do that convincingly. There is a new world trying to be born but it has not found its midwife yet.

Do you see yourself as the last Pope of an old era?

“Between the times I would say…I don’t belong to the old world anymore, but the new world isn’t really here yet” (p. 232)

It began back in November: Rep. Jim Lyons (who has lead the charge against the Bathroom Law, and countless other left-wing proposals), filed a request with the Speaker’s office to have a Celebration of Christmas on Beacon Hill, with a Nativity Scene.

Tyrone Lawless, the Speakers’ staffer in charge of building use requests, told Rep. Lyons that he’d had these requests over the years, but “religious events are not allowed.” Mr. Lawless was reminded that there’s a very public Menorah lighting that occurs at the State House every year, and told Rep. Lyons he would need to check with the Speaker. Rep. Lyons submitted an official, written request, well within the required time period, and Mr. Lawless again said he’d need to confer with the Speaker. Over two weeks went by.

“You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

I shall press on, inserting new blocks of wood into the empty spaces where I’ve hacked out maggot-infested “modern” notions and methods-of-thinking… in a world where we have contempt for “the courtier”.

Last evening I was walking down the corridor of the building where my office is. It was early evening – later than usual. I noticed a colleague still laboring away in his office with his door open. I rather briskly walked by, waving a friendly salute as I passed and I just wished him a quick “Murf! Have a good night sir!”. He then (almost laughingly) replies with the popular quip: “don’t call me sir!” I wondered as I walked to my car; when did it become unfashionable to welcome a “term of honor”? When did we as gentlemen decide to discard our regard for quality and virtue? How thankful I am for Baldassarre Castiglione and the manners and mores of his time!

A little more than two centuries later, the French Revolution was a tipping point in history. How utterly disgusting the notions that blossomed there and then. And we moderns – like dogs, keep eating and vomiting and re-eating the same shit over and over and over again in different iterations with the advent of each different generation. General George Patton was known to have said: (or at least it was a line that I just loved in the movie) “how I hate the twentieth century!”. I’m with ya George, the twenty-first is even worse brother!

“The Cross stands while the world turns” …as the old Carthusian motto reads. A most fitting epithet to adorn the article I found at Rorate Caeli today. I’m glad to hear someone else express their disdain for CRUX writer and liberal rump-swab Austen Ivereigh.

I’m quite disturbed by the cuddling up between CRUX and the Knights of Columbus. As a Past Grand Knight to a local KOC council, I am getting a rash as I ponder this and remember how Carl Anderson’s regime disallowed us to speak to local Democrat “catholic” politicians who clearly needed to be roasted in the public square as heretics (O! for the days of yore!) …or at least catapulted from the council rolls of the KOC! But, I digress…that’s for another day!

I bring this to you from the good folks at Rorate Caeli:

Adultery and Communion: The Church is not a “train”

Professional liberal sycophant Austen Ivereigh penned an article for the Knights of Columbus’ website “Crux“, criticizing those who know that the Church cannot change her doctrine established by Our Lord Jesus Christ on Marriage, Penance, and Eucharistic Communion. In the article, he makes repeated use of this metaphor:

“…the train has left the station, the Church is moving on…”

That, of course, is a ludicrous metaphor which makes no sense whatsoever.

The Church, in moments of crisis, when others “move on”, doubles down in defense of her unchanging Truth, the Truth given to her by Christ to be protected: in the “Reformation”, the north of Europe “moved on”, and the only possible response the Church could give (and that gave her enormous vigor) was the reaffirmation of all doctrines and practices contested by the Protestants — including on what is necessary for Eucharistic Communion.

It is to be found in canon XI of the Decree on the Most Holy Sacrament of the 13th Session of the Council:

CANON XI.-If any one saith, that faith alone is a sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist; let him be anathema. And for fear lest so great a sacrament may be received unworthily, and so unto death and condemnation, this holy Synod ordains and declares, that sacramental confession, when a confessor may be had, is of necessity to be made beforehand, by those whose conscience is burdened with mortal sin, how contrite even soever they may think themselves. But if any one shall presume to teach, preach, or obstinately to assert, or even in public disputation to defend the contrary, he shall be thereupon excommunicated.

Quite right: a continued state of adultery or fornicatory cohabitation with no prospect of penance and stopping the sinful situation is not a sufficient preparation for Eucharistic communion. It will never be so.

The Church is not a “train” and she will never “move on”:

– See more at: http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-church-is-not-train.html#more

This morning (12.11.16) at Mass our parish priest celebrated the Mass ad orientam, much to the shock of most of the congregation. “What is he doing? He is not not even facing us!” said some scandalized parishoners behind us ….progress I thought! I went up to him after the Mass to thank him but I could not get a straight story from him as to why he did it. Either he did it on instruction from the new Bishop for our region OR he did it on his own initiative. Either way I am glad he did it.

Ever since Cardinal Sarah had suggested that priests return to the ad orientam form of worship there has been significant numbers of diocesan priests doing just that. Catholics do homage to God NOT the people. Protestants supplicate the people–not God. The Mass is a sacrifice, not a communal meal. The Mass is ABOUT God and our duty to give him our worship. It is NOT about US. It is not about community-building, social support, helping others in need and so forth. It is about the fundamental virtue of religion – namely the worship of God. Therefore it is right and fitting that the priest face the tabernacle which is positioned at the eastern end of the chapel.